Case Study - May

"My name is May and I am 21 years old. Before joining the Cheshire Constabulary I attended Chester University studying Criminology and Counselling Skills. When I graduated I knew that I wanted to work with the Constabulary but was unsure about the kind of role that I wanted to do. Whilst looking through the vacancies on the Cheshire Police website I saw a role for a Business Administration Apprentice. I was apprehensive at first as it was an apprenticeship and I really wanted a full time job, but I decided to apply with the hopes that it would give me the experience I need to hopefully get a job within the Constabulary one day."

What were your initial thoughts about coming to work for the police?

"When I found out I was successful I was so happy but a little nervous as I was unsure about what department I would be going into. I was pleased when I found out that I was going to be based within the Criminal Justice Department as this sounded interesting to me and I was keen to learn about the different roles within the department. The team that I work in is called the Criminal Justice Change Management Team. This team is responsible for leading change within the justice system, ensuring that the victim, witness and criminal receive justice. They do this by implementing policies and procedures that must be followed by all staff and officers within the Constabulary. I help with different roles such as gathering data on various things, providing administrative support to other members of the team, etc."

Has it been easy to manage your time between work and study?

"As this is an apprenticeship I have had to do work alongside my studies, I have found this relatively easy to deal with as the deadlines are always a reasonable time away giving me plenty of time to complete questions or reports. There have been times when I have needed to ask for an extension due to things needing to be completed within my job role and my assessor has been happy to do this."

What have you enjoyed the most during your time at Cheshire Police?

"Throughout my apprenticeship I have actively looked into different departments for shadowing opportunities. I have been very lucky to be able to shadow in various different roles, just a few of these are: Crime Scene Investigations (CSI); I was able to shadow an member of CSI see what kind of things they do at Crime Scenes and the procedure that has to be abided by, Witness Care; I was able to see the services that they provide for victims and witnesses of crime.

"During my time in Witness Care I was able to attend Liverpool Crown Court and Crewe Magistrates to see more into what the Witness Services team do and how they support victims and witnesses when they are at Court, I was also able to sit in on a few court cases – it was really interesting! I was also able to shadow within the Force Control Center; this is where they receive all the 999 and 101 calls. I was able to listen in on real 999 and 101 calls and see how they Force Control Officer deal with these calls. I was also able to shadow within Major Investigations and learn more about the work that they do. I have also shadowed within an ANPR (Automatic number plate recognition) van and seen the work that Task Force does to help with road traffic offences and accidents.

"This apprenticeship was probably the best decision I have made as I am not only working within the Constabulary which I wanted to do, but I have also been given so many amazing opportunities to work within different departments and find out what department I want to be in in the future. I am learning more about the Constabulary each day and I definitely want to get a full time job here after the apprenticeship is over!"